Document revision via social media

ABSTRACT

Document revision via social media includes receiving a portion of a document and contact information of a reviewer to be notified for reviewing the portion of the document. The contact information of the reviewer corresponds to a social network. Document revision via social media also includes storing the portion of the document and the contact information of the reviewer into a memory, generating a link referencing the portion of the document stored into the memory, and publishing the link to the reviewer for the reviewer to access the portion of the document for reviewing via the social network.

BACKGROUND

The present disclosure relates generally to document revision, and morespecifically, to document revision via social media. Creation ofdocuments is one of the most important and universal tasks for aknowledge worker. Such documents range from short pieces such as emails,executive summaries, posters or graphics, to longer pieces such asproposals, full presentations, whitepapers, specifications, salesprojections and more. The quality of such documents is of great concernfor both individuals and for the organizations that employ them. In bothcases, the desire is for documents to be as correct, complete,informative and persuasive as possible.

Online social network services (SNSs) are playing an ever-important rolein shaping the behavior of users on the web. Popular social sites (suchas Facebook (Facebook is a Trade Mark of Facebook, Inc.), MySpace(MySpace is a Trade Mark of News Corporation), Flickr, and del.icio.us(Flickr and del.icio.us are Trade Marks of Yahoo!, Inc.), Twitter(Twitter is a Trade mark of Twitter, Inc.) are enjoying increasingtraffic and are turning into community spaces, where users interact withtheir friends and acquaintances. Users are increasingly using socialnetwork services for communication and building a social network basedon their, profession, likes, interests and need.

SUMMARY

According to embodiments of the present invention, there is provided asystem, a computer program product and a method for document revision.The method includes receiving a portion of a document and contactinformation of a reviewer to be notified for reviewing the portion ofthe document. The contact information of the reviewer corresponds to asocial network. The method further includes storing the portion of thedocument and the contact information of the reviewer into a memory. Themethod further includes generating a link referencing the portion of thedocument stored into the memory, and publishing the link to the reviewerfor the reviewer to access the portion of the document for reviewing viathe social network.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

Through the more detailed description of some embodiments of the presentdisclosure in the accompanying drawings, the above and other featuresand advantages of the present disclosure will become more apparent,wherein the same reference generally refers to the same components inthe embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 1 depicts a cloud computing node according to an embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 depicts a cloud computing environment according to an embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 3 depicts abstraction model layers according to an embodiment ofthe present invention.

FIG. 4 depicts a system for document revision in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 shows an exemplary flow for performing an embodiment of thepresent invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Some embodiments will be described in more detail with reference to theaccompanying drawings, in which the embodiments of the presentdisclosure have been illustrated. However, the present disclosure can beimplemented in various manners, and thus should not be construed to belimited to the embodiments disclosed herein. On the contrary, thoseembodiments are provided for the thorough and complete understanding ofthe present disclosure, and completely conveying the scope of thepresent disclosure to those skilled in the art.

It is understood in advance that although this disclosure includes adetailed description on cloud computing, implementation of the teachingsrecited herein are not limited to a cloud computing environment. Rather,embodiments of the present invention are capable of being implemented inconjunction with any other type of computing environment now known orlater developed.

Cloud computing is a model of service delivery for enabling convenient,on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computingresources (e.g. networks, network bandwidth, servers, processing,memory, storage, applications, virtual machines, and services) that canbe rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort orinteraction with a provider of the service. This cloud model may includeat least five characteristics, at least three service models, and atleast four deployment models.

Characteristics are as follows:

On-demand self-service: a cloud consumer can unilaterally provisioncomputing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, asneeded automatically without requiring human interaction with theservice's provider.

Broad network access: capabilities are available over a network andaccessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneousthin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).

Resource pooling: the provider's computing resources are pooled to servemultiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physicaland virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according todemand. There is a sense of location independence in that the consumergenerally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of theprovided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher levelof abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter).

Rapid elasticity: capabilities can be rapidly and elasticallyprovisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out andrapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilitiesavailable for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can bepurchased in any quantity at any time.

Measured service: cloud systems automatically control and optimizeresource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level ofabstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage,processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can bemonitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both theprovider and consumer of the utilized service.

Service Models are as follows:

Software as a Service (SaaS): the capability provided to the consumer isto use the provider's applications miming on a cloud infrastructure. Theapplications are accessible from various client devices through a thinclient interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based e-mail). Theconsumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructureincluding network, servers, operating systems, storage, or evenindividual application capabilities, with the possible exception oflimited user-specific application configuration settings.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): the capability provided to the consumer isto deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquiredapplications created using programming languages and tools supported bythe provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlyingcloud infrastructure including networks, servers, operating systems, orstorage, but has control over the deployed applications and possiblyapplication hosting environment configurations.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): the capability provided to theconsumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and otherfundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy andrun arbitrary software, which can include operating systems andapplications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlyingcloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage,deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networkingcomponents (e.g., host firewalls).

Deployment Models are as follows:

Private cloud: the cloud infrastructure is operated solely for anorganization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party andmay exist on-premises or off-premises.

Community cloud: the cloud infrastructure is shared by severalorganizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns(e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and complianceconsiderations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third partyand may exist on-premises or off-premises.

Public cloud: the cloud infrastructure is made available to the generalpublic or a large industry group and is owned by an organization sellingcloud services.

Hybrid cloud: the cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or moreclouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities butare bound together by standardized or proprietary technology thatenables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting forload-balancing between clouds).

A cloud computing environment is service oriented with a focus onstatelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability.At the heart of cloud computing is an infrastructure comprising anetwork of interconnected nodes.

Existing document review methodologies present some challenges, e.g.,they are asynchronous in nature, i.e., usually, reviewers are contactedby email or other asynchronous means, and the reviewers must respond bythe same channel. In addition, the volume of content being shared canpresent challenges. A complete document is sent to the reviewers forreview, and the reviewers are required to spend a significant amount oftime reading and understanding the document before they can comment.Another challenge is in merging the suggestions, e.g., when reviewerssend back their comments or feedback. The comments may be in differentcopies of the original document sent by the respective reviewers or incomments circulated outside the document, making it exceedinglydifficult for the user or author to reconcile. Other concerns relate tounfamiliar file formats, security and access control for documents,access to document management systems, and reaching out to the rightreviewers.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a schematic of an example of a cloud computingnode is shown. Cloud computing node 10 is only one example of a suitablecloud computing node and is not intended to suggest any limitation as tothe scope of use or functionality of embodiments of the inventiondescribed herein. Regardless, cloud computing node 10 is capable ofbeing implemented and/or performing any of the functionality set forthhereinabove.

In cloud computing node 10 there is a computer system/server 12, whichis operational with numerous other general purpose or special purposecomputing system environments or configurations. Examples of well-knowncomputing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may besuitable for use with computer system/server 12 include, but are notlimited to, personal computer systems, server computer systems, thinclients, thick clients, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessorsystems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmableconsumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputer systems, mainframecomputer systems, and distributed cloud computing environments thatinclude any of the above systems or devices, and the like.

Computer system/server 12 may be described in the general context ofcomputer system-executable instructions, such as program modules, beingexecuted by a computer system. Generally, program modules may includeroutines, programs, objects, components, logic, data structures, and soon that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract datatypes. Computer system/server 12 may be practiced in distributed cloudcomputing environments where tasks are performed by remote processingdevices that are linked through a communications network. In adistributed cloud computing environment, program modules may be locatedin both local and remote computer system storage media including memorystorage devices.

As shown in FIG. 1, computer system/server 12 in cloud computing node 10is shown in the form of a general-purpose computing device. Thecomponents of computer system/server 12 may include, but are not limitedto, one or more processors or processing units 16, a system memory 28,and a bus 18 that couples various system components including systemmemory 28 to processor 16.

Bus 18 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures,including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, anaccelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of avariety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation,such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus,Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, VideoElectronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and PeripheralComponent Interconnect (PCI) bus.

Computer system/server 12 typically includes a variety of computersystem readable media. Such media may be any available media that isaccessible by computer system/server 12, and it includes both volatileand non-volatile media, removable and non-removable media.

System memory 28 can include computer system readable media in the formof volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM) 30 and/or cachememory 32. Computer system/server 12 may further include otherremovable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer system storagemedia. By way of example only, storage system 34 can be provided forreading from and writing to a non-removable, non-volatile magnetic media(not shown and typically called a “hard drive”). Although not shown, amagnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable,non-volatile magnetic disk (e.g., a “floppy disk”), and an optical diskdrive for reading from or writing to a removable, non-volatile opticaldisk such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or other optical media can be provided.In such instances, each can be connected to bus 18 by one or more datamedia interfaces. As will be further depicted and described below,memory 28 may include at least one program product having a set (e.g.,at least one) of program modules that are configured to carry out thefunctions of embodiments of the invention.

Program/utility 40, having a set (at least one) of program modules 42,may be stored in memory 28 by way of example, and not limitation, aswell as an operating system, one or more application programs, otherprogram modules, and program data. Each of the operating system, one ormore application programs, other program modules, and program data orsome combination thereof, may include an implementation of a networkingenvironment. Program modules 42 generally carry out the functions and/ormethodologies of embodiments of the invention as described herein.

Computer system/server 12 may also communicate with one or more externaldevices 14 such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a display 24, etc.;one or more devices that enable a user to interact with computersystem/server 12; and/or any devices (e.g., network card, modem, etc.)that enable computer system/server 12 to communicate with one or moreother computing devices. Such communication can occur via Input/Output(I/O) interfaces 22. Still yet, computer system/server 12 cancommunicate with one or more networks such as a local area network(LAN), a general wide area network (WAN), and/or a public network (e.g.,the Internet) via network adapter 20. As depicted, network adapter 20communicates with the other components of computer system/server 12 viabus 18. It should be understood that although not shown, other hardwareand/or software components could be used in conjunction with computersystem/server 12. Examples, include, but are not limited to: microcode,device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays,RAID systems, tape drives, and data archival storage systems, etc.

Referring now to FIG. 2, illustrative cloud computing environment 50 isdepicted. As shown, cloud computing environment 50 comprises one or morecloud computing nodes 10 with which local computing devices used bycloud consumers, such as, for example, personal digital assistant (PDA)or cellular telephone 54A, desktop computer 54B, laptop computer 54C,and/or automobile computer system 54N may communicate. Nodes 10 maycommunicate with one another. They may be grouped (not shown) physicallyor virtually, in one or more networks, such as Private, Community,Public, or Hybrid clouds as described hereinabove, or a combinationthereof. This allows cloud computing environment 50 to offerinfrastructure, platforms and/or software as services for which a cloudconsumer does not need to maintain resources on a local computingdevice. It is understood that the types of computing devices 54A-N shownin FIG. 2 are intended to be illustrative only and that computing nodes10 and cloud computing environment 50 can communicate with any type ofcomputerized device over any type of network and/or network addressableconnection (e.g., using a web browser).

Referring now to FIG. 3, a set of functional abstraction layers providedby cloud computing environment 50 (FIG. 2) is shown. It should beunderstood in advance that the components, layers, and functions shownin FIG. 3 are intended to be illustrative only and embodiments of theinvention are not limited thereto. As depicted, the following layers andcorresponding functions are provided:

Hardware and software layer 60 includes hardware and softwarecomponents. Examples of hardware components include mainframes, in oneexample IBM® zSeries® systems; RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer)architecture based servers, in one example IBM pSeries® systems; IBMxSeries® systems; IBM BladeCenter® systems; storage devices; networksand networking components. Examples of software components includenetwork client, in one example IBM WebSphere® client; and databasesoftware, in one example IBM DB2® database software. (IBM, zSeries,pSeries, xSeries, BladeCenter, WebSphere, and DB2 are trademarks ofInternational Business Machines Corporation registered in manyjurisdictions worldwide).

Virtualization layer 62 provides an abstraction layer from which thefollowing examples of virtual entities may be provided: virtual servers;virtual storage; virtual networks, including virtual private networks;virtual applications and operating systems; and virtual clients.

In one example, management layer 64 may provide the functions describedbelow. Resource provisioning provides dynamic procurement of computingresources and other resources that are utilized to perform tasks withinthe cloud computing environment. Metering and Pricing provide costtracking as resources are utilized within the cloud computingenvironment, and billing or invoicing for consumption of theseresources. In one example, these resources may comprise applicationsoftware licenses. Security provides identity verification for cloudconsumers and tasks, as well as protection for data and other resources.User portal provides access to the cloud computing environment forconsumers and system administrators. Service level management providescloud computing resource allocation and management such that requiredservice levels are met. Service Level Agreement (SLA) planning andfulfillment provides pre-arrangement for, and procurement of, cloudcomputing resources for which a future requirement is anticipated inaccordance with an SLA. Further shown in the management layer 64 isconnection allocation, which represents the functionality that isprovided under the embodiments of the present invention.

Workloads layer 66 provides examples of functionality for which thecloud computing environment may be utilized. Examples of workloads andfunctions which may be provided from this layer include: mapping andnavigation; software development and lifecycle management; virtualclassroom education delivery; data analytics processing; transactionprocessing; and document revision.

It is understood that all functions of the present invention asdescribed herein typically may be performed by the document revision(workloads layer 66, which can be tangibly as modules of program code 42of program/utility 40 of FIG. 1). However, this need not be the case.Rather, the functionality recited herein could be carriedout/implemented and/or enabled by any of the layers 60-66 shown in FIG.3.

It is reiterated that although this disclosure includes a detaileddescription on cloud computing, implementation of the teachings recitedherein are not limited to a cloud computing environment. Rather, theembodiments of the present invention are intended to be implemented withany type of networked computing environment known now or laterdeveloped.

FIG. 4 depicts a system 70 for document revision in accordance withaspects of the present invention. As shown in the example of FIG. 4, thesystem 70 includes a client node 75, a server node 80 and a plurality ofreviewer nodes 85 operatively connected to a network 90. In general, theclient node 75 may include the computing device 54A, 54B, 54C, or 54N ofFIG. 2 operated by a user. The reviewer nodes 85 may include one or moreof the computing devices 54A-N. The server node 80 may include thecomputer system 12 of FIG. 1.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, an application 95resident on the client node 70 is integrated with a document editingtool 100. In general the application 95 may be implemented as a program40 of FIG. 1 on the computing devices 54A-N of FIG. 2. For example, theapplication 95 may be integrated with the document editing tool 100using a plugin 105. The document editing tool 100 can be any documenteditor installed on the client code 75. One example of the documentediting tool is Microsoft Word (Microsoft is a Trade mark of MicrosoftCorporation). In general, the application 95 and the plugin 105 may beimplemented as programs 40 of FIG. 1 on the client node 70. In the shownexample of FIG. 4, only one document editing tool 100 and a plugin 105are illustrated as an example only. The client node 75 may have aplurality of different document editing tools 100 integrated with theapplication 95 via the respective plugins 105. According to oneembodiment of the present invention, the application 95 integrated withthe document editing tool 100 such that the application 95 can receive aportion of a document accessed via the document editing tool 100. Adocument owner desiring to provide a portion of a document to one ormore reviewers for revision may select the portion of the document viathe document editing tool 95 and invoke the application 95. The term“document owner” referred to herein means person desiring to share aportion of a document for review. The document owner may be an author ofthe document of the owner of the document. The portion of the documentused herein may include, but not limited to, text, tables, graphics,images, videos. Thus, the portion of the document may comprise variedtypes of content and is not limited only text. For example, the portionof the document may correspond to one or more paragraphs selected by thedocument owner for review.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the application 95may be listed in the resulting menu provided by right-clicking of amouse. The document owner may invoke the application 95 byright-clicking the mouse after selecting the portion of the document andselecting a reference command of the application 95 listed in theresulting menu.

On being invoked, the application 95 is configured to provide agraphical user interface (GUI) for the document owner to provideinformation as input. According to one embodiment of the presentinvention, the GUI may be configured to receive as input, contactinformation of the reviewers, level of confidentiality, and a message tobe provided to the contacts. However, in certain implementations, GUImay be configured to receive other inputs from the document owner suchas forwarding rights for the reviewers. For example, by providingforwarding rights to the reviewers, the document owner may allow thereviewers to forward the portion of documents to their contacts. Forexample, the reviewers may forward it to their social contacts using anysocial media. According to one embodiment of the present invention, thecontact information of the reviewers may be social network contacts ofthe document owner. According to one embodiment of the presentinvention, social network contacts of the document owner may bepre-categorized and the category of contacts to which the portion of thedocument is to be provided for review is provided as input by thedocument owner. For example, the GUI may be configured to provide a dropdown menu listing the categories. The document owner may select one ormore categories from the drop down menu. The application 95 may beconfigured to identify all the contacts categorized under the selectedcategory to be the contacts the document owner is interested inforwarding the portion of the document for revision.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the GUI may beconfigured to list out different levels of confidentiality and thedocument owner may select the level of confidentiality by making theappropriate selection on the GUI. For example, the different levels ofconfidentiality can be presented as a drop-down menu and the documentowner may select the level of confidentiality by making the selectionfrom the drop down list. The application 95 may be configured to applythe level of confidentiality to the portion of document. For example, ifthe level of confidentiality selected is “company confidential”, thenthe portion of the document for review is to be forwarded only to thecontacts within the company of the document owner even though thecontacts are included in the selected category. According to oneembodiment of the present invention, the information of the company of acontact may be obtained from a profile of the contact on a socialnetwork. The GUI may also be configured to receive other informationfrom the document owner and accordingly may be configured to list theoptions.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the GUI maycomprise a dialog box and the document owner may input a message to beprovided to the contacts with the portion of the document. On thedocument owner submitting the revision request, the application 95 isconfigured to receive the portion of the document and the informationprovided by the document owner as input. For example, the informationmay comprise the contact details of the reviews, the level ofconfidentiality and the message. On receiving the information, theapplication 95 is configured to determine the level of confidentialityand filter out the contact details of reviewers which do not satisfy thelevel of confidentiality selected by the document owner. Thereafter, theportion of the document, the filtered contact details of reviewers andthe message is provided by the application 95 to the server node 80 viathe network 90. The server node 80 on receiving the portion of thedocument, the filtered contact information of the reviewers and themessage is configured to store the portion of the document and thefiltered contact information of the reviewers into a memory (e.g., thememory 28 in FIG. 1) and assign a unique identification reference to thesame.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the server node 80may be configured to generate a link referring to the stored portion ofthe document using the unique identification reference assigned.According to another embodiment, the server node 80 may be configured togenerate the link referring to the stored portion of the document andthe filtered contact information of the reviewers. For example, the linkmay be a hyper text markup language (HTML) link, a uniform resourcelocator (URL) and the like. The server node 80 generates a socialmessage comprising the link and the message and the social message ispublished to the reviewers by the server node 80 using the filteredcontact information of the reviewers via the network 90. As the contactinformation of the reviewers relates to social network contacts, thelink and the message are published to the reviewers via social networks.For example, the social message can be published via the social sitescorresponding to the contact information of the reviewers. According toanother embodiment of the present invention, the server node 80 maygenerate the social message using the link in aspects where the documentowner has not provided any message. The reviewers may view the socialmessage by accessing the social site of the reviewer to which the socialmessage has been published.

The reviewers access the portion of the document for review using thelink. In the shown example of FIG. 4, the reviewers access the portionof the document via the reviewer nodes 85. According to one embodimentof the present invention, the access to the portion of the document maybe a web based access. The web based access may comprise anauthentication mechanism for providing access to only authenticatedreviewers. According to an embodiment of the present invention, theauthentication mechanism may be performed using the authenticationprocess of the social sites. The reviewers may review the portion of thedocument via the web based access and may provide comments orsuggestions as inputs via the web based access. The comments provided bythe reviewers are received and collected by the server node 80. Theserver node 80 may be configured to identify the portion of the documentto which a comment or suggestion from a reviewer relates and store itaccordingly. For example, this can be achieved by the uniqueidentification reference for each portion of the document used in thelink. The unique identification reference enables in identifying towhich portion of a document the comment or suggestion relate. The accessto the portion of the document for review being web based provides theadvantage of eliminating the requirement of the reviewers to useparticular editing tool is eliminated.

The comments from the reviewers received by the server node 80 areforwarded to application 95. The application 95 is configured to receivethe comments and notify the document owner of the comments. For example,the notification may be provided as a popup notification. The documentowner may click on the popup notification to view the comment. Accordingto one embodiment of the present invention, the application 95 may beconfigured to provide a command within the notification, so that whenthe command is clicked by the document owner, the portion of thedocument submitted for review comes to the foreground of the display ofthe client node 75. A mechanism may be provided so that the documentowner may invoke the application 95 directly while viewing the portionof the document. For example, the application 95 may be invoked using aright-click of the mouse and selecting the appropriate command in thedrop down menu. On invoking the application 95, comments received fromall the reviewers are displayed to the document owner. The application95 may retrieve the comments from the server node 80. However, thedocument owner may also view the comments collected by the server node80. This may be achieved by the document owner accessing the server node80 via the application 95 on the client node 75. As the server node 80is configured to collect the comments from the reviewers, the documentowner can access the comments stored by the server node 80.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, each of thecomments may be associated with a command so that the document owner candirectly accept the comment by clicking the command. This will cause theportion of the document to be replaced by the by the comment. Thus, thecomments received from the reviewers may be seamlessly merged with thedocument. According to another embodiment of the present invention, thedocument owner may select only a portion of the comment from a reviewerand then indicate the acceptance only for the selected portion byclicking the command. In this case, the related text of the portion ofthe document is replaced by the selected portion of the comment. Theplugin 105 integrating the document editing tool 100 and the application95 may be configured to merge the comments with the document.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, theapplication 95 may provide the portion of the document and theinformation to the server node 80. The server node 80 may be configuredto store the portion of the document and the contact details of thereviewers into the memory and assign a unique identification referenceto the same. The server node 80 may generate a link referring to thestored portion of the document and the contact details of the reviewers.The server node 80 generates a social message comprising the link andthe message and the social message is forwarded to the reviewers by theserver node 80 using the contact details of the reviewers via thenetwork 90. However, in the present embodiment, as the contact detailsare not filtered out by the application 90, the reviewers who are in thesame company of the document owner will only be authenticated at theauthentication mechanism. This may be achieved by configuring the servernode 80 to allow access to reviewers whose credentials matches with thelevel of confidentiality applied. According to another embodiment of thepresent invention, the server node 80 may be configured to publish thelink and the message to the reviewers who satisfy the level ofconfidentiality applied. Thus, in this case, the server node 80 may beconfigured to filter the contact information based on the level ofconfidentiality applied.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, comment providedby one reviewer may be seen by other reviewers. For example, a firstreview may be provided a read access to the comments received from asecond reviewer. This is achieved since the reviewers have web access tothe portion of the document. Thus, the comments collected by the servernode 80 may be visible to the reviewers as the server node 80 stores thecomments by identifying as to which portion of the document the commentsrelate.

In aspects where a document owner desires to have multiple portions of adocument reviewed, the document owner may follow the embodimentsdescribed herein for each of the portions. By publishing only therelevant portions of the document, the reviewer's time is not wasted asthe reviewer does not see the complete document.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the application 95may be configured to provide various statistics on document revision tothe document owner. For example, the application may be configured todetermine what types of documents are being edited. This may bedetermined through the category of the reviewers selected by thedocument owner. The application 95 may also be configured to determinewhich reviewers are active in providing comments. Thus, the documentowner can be made aware as to which reviewer is active and who is not.The application 95 may also be configured to determine reviewers whosecomments are more frequently incorporated by the document owner. For,example a score can be assigned to each reviewer based on this and thedocument owner can be made aware of this score so that the documentowner can ascertain as to on which comment he can rely. The score mayalso be used for rewarding the reviewers. Thus statistics may beprovided by to the document owner on the frequency of response of areviewer. The application 95 may also be configured to determinestatistics, such as, total number of revisions of a document, totalnumber of revisions requested by a document owner, and the like.

FIG. 5 depicts an exemplary flow for a process 500 in accordance withaspects of the present invention. In embodiments, the process 500 can beperformed by the communication adapter 95 in FIG. 4.

At step 505, the process starts. At step 510, the server node (e.g., theserver node 80 in FIG. 4) is receives a portion of a document and acontact information of a reviewer to be notified for reviewing theportion of the document. The portion of the document can be sent by theapplication (e.g., the application 95 in FIG. 4) running on the clientnode 75 (e.g., the client node 75 in FIG. 4). At step 515, the servernode stores the portion of the document and the contact information ofthe reviewer into a memory (e.g., the memory 28 in FIG. 1). At step 520,the server node generates a link referencing the portion of the documentstored into the memory. At step 525, the server node publishes the linkto the reviewer for the reviewer to access the portion of the documentfor reviewing. At step 530, the process ends.

The embodiments described herein enable in revision of a portion of adocument. Since a portion of the document can be published to thereviewers for review, the complete document is not required to beforwarded to the reviewers. This achieves in reducing the time investedby the reviewers for reviewing as the reviewer is not required to gothrough the complete document. Additionally, since only the desiredportion of the document requiring review is published, the likelihood ofreceiving comments from reviewers is high as it requires less time for areviewer to review the portion of the document then the entire document.This achieves in increasing the efficiency of the document reviewprocess. The comments provided by the reviewers can be reconciled withease using the application. As the reviewers are provided web basedaccess, the reviewers can see the comments provided by others. Thisprovides the advantage of collaborated reviewing.

The descriptions of the various embodiments of the present inventionhave been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intendedto be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the describedembodiments. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain theprinciples of the embodiments, the practical application or technicalimprovement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodimentsdisclosed herein.

1.-7. (canceled)
 8. A system implemented in hardware, comprising: acomputer operable to: receive a portion of a document and at least onecontact information of at least one reviewer to be notified forreviewing the portion of the document, wherein the at least one contactinformation of the at least one reviewer corresponds to a socialnetwork; store the portion of the document and the at least one contactinformation of the at least one reviewer into a memory; generate a linkreferencing the portion of the document stored into the memory; andpublish the link to the at least one reviewer for the reviewer to accessthe portion of the document for reviewing via the social network.
 9. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the computer is further operable to: receivea comment associated with the portion of the document from the at leastone reviewer; and store the comment into the memory.
 10. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the computer is further operable to provide anotification of the comment received from the at least one reviewer to adocument owner.
 11. The system of claim 8, wherein the computer isfurther operable to provide a first reviewer a read access to thecomment received from a second reviewer, the comment being stored intothe memory.
 12. The system of claim 8, wherein the computer is operableto assign a unique identification reference to the portion of thedocument and the at least one contact information of the at least onereviewer.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein the computer is operableto generate the link using the unique identification reference.
 14. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the link provides a web based access to theportion of the document to the at least one reviewer for reviewing.15.-20. (canceled)